


Living's a Problem Because Everything Dies

by JustJasper



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, HIV/AIDS, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:45:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a Prompt on 'CM Prompt Meme R3: AU' @ LJ.</p><p>Reid contracts HIV (In episode 5x01 When Dr.Barton puts pressure on the unsub's wound and then goes back and presses his bloody hands into Reid's leg wound.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living's a Problem Because Everything Dies

He does think about it, briefly, as Dr Barton presses his bloody hands to his leg wound, but the pain overrides everything. A bullet entering the leg ricocheting behind the kneecap does that to a person. He finds out at his first hospital appointment during his recovery.

“HIV positive?” He repeats dumbly.

“I’m sorry, Mr Reid.”

The doctor continues to speak, and he listens, but later in the car being driven home by Morgan he doesn’t remember any of what was said, can’t recall the doctor’s facts or instructions. He doesn’t tell Morgan.

He doesn’t tell anyone, in fact. He’s not at work for weeks because of his leg, so it lets him stew in the news that he has an incurable virus that will cause his immune system to fail and leave him vulnerable to infection and cancer and reduce his life expectancy considerably. The team visit to cheer him up, and he uses the very real pain from his leg injury and the spaced-out feeling his non-narcotic painkiller give him to mask any question about whether there’s something else amiss. Hotch’s recovery distracts them too, and he wishes he wasn’t glad for it.

He fakes the effects of his painkillers as worse than they are when Morgan comes around, attentive and keen to look after him much like he did after he was infected with Anthrax, a good friend, a good boyfriend. He suddenly realises he hates when Morgan touches him to help him move, because even though it’s ridiculous he feels like not telling him is the worst kind of deception.

He exaggerates discomfort so Morgan won’t sit on the sofa with him and snuggle. He fakes restlessness so he won’t sleep over. He turns down every offer for help he can do so without seeming suspicious. He turns away when Morgan tries to kiss him; he knows that it would take literally litres of saliva to risk exposing Morgan to the virus in a kiss, but he can’t bear it. Morgan thinks it’s the leg and the meds and not being able to work at what he loves, and gives Reid the space he needs.

Reid starts antiretroviral medication, and it knocks him on his ass. The vomiting and diarrhoea have the good grace not to come at the same time, but the nausea is constant. The doctor says it will get better once his body becomes used to the chemicals he’s going to be giving it for the rest of his life. The rash he gets on his chest keeps him up at night with the urge to itch.

The man who shot him, Meyers, who is in a psychiatric unit getting the help he needs, didn’t know he was infected either. He sends Reid a letter saying how sorry he is. Spencer wants to be the bigger man and accept it, but instead he tears up the letter and pushes it down the kitchen sink, throat tight as he tries not to cry even in his empty apartment.

Thankfully all the side effects but a lingering occasional nausea fade by the time he goes back to work – sooner than he should, but he can’t bear being alone with himself in his apartment. Hotch is out for another twelve days, and on every one he feels like he’s actively lying to his team by not telling them. He knows Morgan’s worried, and he knows it’s not fair to do, but he ignores it.

In Hotch’s office the man looks him over with concern, and Reid wonders if he too can tell how thin his face looks. The nausea and sickness and pain have taken their toll on his diet and will to bother.

“How’s your leg?” His boss asks.

He means to say something like “it’s getting better”, but he ends up saying “I have HIV.”

Hotch’s mouth twitches in surprise, his brow creasing.

“Patrick Meyers was infected. When Dr Barton was tending to our wounds I was infected.”

“I’m sorry, Reid,” he says, and looks genuinely sorry.

There are reassurances about the job, and about his diagnosis not impacting his role, and Hotch assures him he doesn’t have to disclose to anyone, even the team. He decides he wants to, has to, because they’re his family, and also the people most likely to come to his aid if he’s injured in the field. He can’t face revealing it to everyone again and again, so in the next briefing Hotch tells the gathered profilers that Reid has something he needs to share, and all eyes turn to him; curious, intrigued, but nobody really worried.

“Patrick Meyers was infected with HIV, and during our confrontation and Dr Barton’s emergency treatment, I was infected.”

Reid meets all of their eyes briefly. He doesn’t see any disgust, though he hadn’t expected to, but it’s still a relief. He swallows hard at the hurt and confusion on Morgan’s face.

“I just wanted you to be aware since you’re most likely to encounter me injured, and you’ll be able to make an informed decision regarding risk.”

He watches as they look between each other, for the first time knowing something that might make them pause in going to help one of their own.

He shares a hotel room with Morgan on the case, and as soon as they go back there for the night, Morgan finally confronts him.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry. I know it was unfair to risk exposing you-”

“No, shut up,” he snaps, voice thick with emotion, “it’s not about that. You didn’t tell me. I could have helped. You just shut me out. I could have-” he shrugs uselessly, face pleading for something Reid can’t give him.

“I don’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore,” Reid says, and if anyone looking through the window were to guess what he’d said by the look on Morgan’s face, it probably would have involved him having killed his dog Clooney with a hammer.

“Don’t,” Morgan chokes, his face crumbling, his expressive features committing a torture he doesn’t know he’s capable of. “I don’t care about the HIV, don’t do this.”

“I don’t want to be with you,” Reid reiterates in a bland staccato, and doesn’t move to follow when Morgan storms out, slamming the door behind him and not returning to the room until an hour before they’re back on the case the next morning.

Reid finds it surprising how little work changes. He has bad days on his medication, but his leg gives him most of his problems, and his team are neither distant or try too hard to be understanding of his diagnosis.

Garcia gives him a book about living with HIV, and he understands it’s the only gesture she feels she can make, so he thanks her even though it’s a collection of cherry-picked real-life stories of men living with HIV, published by a HIV charity and showcasing the gold stars of HIV-positive people, the ones who run marathons and climb mountains and adopt seven adorable kids with their HIV-positive same-sex life partner, and he finds it useless. He’s absorbing everything though, long nights of textbooks and everything he can read on the internet. He pretends it’s helping, but doesn’t believe it is.

Sixties, looks like a ‘good’ age for people living with HIV and AIDS to survive to. It doesn’t sound like nearly long enough to Reid. He doesn’t tell his mother.

When his relationship with Morgan starts up again, because he can’t bear being apart from him, Morgan is considerate and patient as always, and doesn’t push him. So patient, it makes Reid feel like he’s made the thing in his life that once felt the simplest into a trial.

“Can I kiss you?” Morgan murmurs, through the dark in a bed where they’re only just touching. “Will you kiss me back? I want to kiss you, Spencer, I know I can’t get infected from a kiss. Can we-” He seems to think he’s pushing, because he goes quiet, and lets the silence hang. “I’m sorry.”

Reid turns over quickly, finding him through the dark and pushing them closer than they’ve been in months.

“Please don’t ask me again,” he murmurs.

“I- I’m sorry.”

“No,” he continues, because he hasn’t been clear, “I mean stop asking for permission. I’m sorry, I want us to be normal again, I do. I don’t want you being afraid to kiss me.”

“I’m not afraid,” Morgan says before he takes the initiative and presses their mouths together softly. It’s lips gently folding against lips, intimate because it means everything.

Things don’t get back to normal. Reid is hesitant to let Morgan touch him intimately, because as often as he reads about the risks being easy to avoid, he also reads about how easy infecting another person can be. He realises in the middle of a passionate kiss on the sofa how often he bites at Morgan’s bottom lip, and tries to stop. Morgan notices, Reid can tell, in the way he pauses each time Reid catches his teeth and moves them away.

When things finally get sexual again, it highlights how much damage there is.

“Stop,” Morgan says, gripping Reid’s wrist as his hand makes for his lover’s erection. “Not again, baby. I want to make you cum.”

For weeks it’s been limited to handjobs, Reid giving and being resistant to receive, never letting Morgan stroke him to orgasm, always taking over and bringing himself off. Morgan tries to make it more like before when they worked together for each other’s pleasure, talking dirty while Reid strokes himself and helping to get him off with his voice. Reid knows the man misses free reign over every inch of his body, and Reid misses it too like burning.

He hasn’t cried yet. Sometimes he feels like he will, should, needs to. It doesn’t come. He gets angry when anyone does something to remind him of the diagnosis he’s living with.

“Did you take your meds?” Morgan asks casually as he heads for a shower. Reid snaps at him and Morgan sighs.

“How are you doing?” Garcia asks, with the emphasis making clear what she’s asking about, and he barely stops himself sneering at her and telling her it’s none of her damn business.

“It’s about this guy who-” Prentiss stops in the middle of explaining to JJ the book she’s reading as they sit in the bullpen and Reid comes within earshot. He knows the book and that the protagonist has AIDs, and he hates their sudden silence.

Morgan keeps trying. Reid finally decides he’s ready for more, sexually, and makes Morgan wear a latex glove when he fingers him. It’s not the same as bare fingers that could get him off quicker than anything else, and it’s not about the skill. Knowing he’ll never be able to have Morgan’s skin against his most intimate flesh again, that he can’t envision ever being comfortable with anal sex again even with protection makes him want to scream. They had everything, were so in tune and comfortable with the fact the physical part of their relationship was keenly important, the idea of it being so redux makes him ache. He wants so much to have everything they had before, but he loves Morgan so desperately that he isn’t sure he could live with accidentally infecting him too.

Dr Barton comes to see him. Reid hadn’t told him, hadn’t thought he needed to. The man had checked up on him and thanked him before Reid knew, it seemed pointless to reach out just to tell him he had HIV. Dr Barton starts to apologize and begins to cry. Reid doesn’t tell him it’s okay, because it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination, but he thanks him for apologizing. When he leaves, Reid hopes he never sees him again, because he doesn’t know if he could look at him without wanting to take out his gun and unload a clip into his chest, to let the rage out and destroy everything it touches, unable to fix anything, but powerful enough to create plenty of collateral damage that might just be cathartic.

Morgan doesn’t once say he thinks how Reid is handling things is wrong, whether he thinks it or not. There are some things he can’t hide, though; the looks of hurt when Reid pulls away, the slow exhales each time he registers something is different because of the HIV.

It’s just a small cut, a slip with the kitchen knife, but the blood flows quickly and then Morgan automatically reaches for him.

”Don’t touch me!” Reid screeches, clutching his hand to his chest, stumbling backwards and backing into the fridge.

“Spencer, you’re hurt.”

“You can’t just-” he huffs, peering at the cut. It’s not big, and there’s not that much blood. “Derek, don’t do that again. You risk infection coming in contact with my blood.”

“Only if it gets into mine,” Morgan says patiently, holding his hands up and turning them several times in front of himself. “See? No cuts. Safe.”

“It’s not,” Reid shakes his head. “It’s not.”

For the first time on a case, he hesitates. They’re organising to face off where there are suspects with hostages, and when Hotch orders Reid and Prentiss and Rossi in first he hesitates. It’s just for a second, and he doesn’t say anything, but Hotch notices. There’s the silent understanding of the ‘what if’, of the nightmare scenario of putting someone at risk in the chaos. Reid thinks it will always happen now.

“I’ve been thinking,” Morgan says seriously as they lie in bed.

Reid expects Morgan to suggest therapy, or a vacation, or both. He doesn’t expect him to admit he’s been seriously considering purposefully exposing himself to Reid’s HIV infection so their relationship can go back to what it was before.

He hates himself for causing such a thought in another human being.

“This is over,” Reid says as he drags himself out of Morgan’s bed, searching out his clothing.

“What?”

“Over, Derek. We can’t be together. It doesn’t work, I can’t make it work.”

“Don’t Reid!” Morgan is following him as he pulls on boxers, Reid hurries down the stairs, heading for the door. “Don’t do this! Don’t leave me!”

Reid hears him choke back a sob and realises he’s broken him.

“I love you!” Morgan yells, out in his front yard in nothing but his boxers. Clooney comes out to see the commotion, and starts barking. Reid hurries to his car, because he has to get away before he ruins Derek completely, before the man destroys his life for him. He can’t do that to him.

He’s three miles away from Derek’s house when he pulls up at the side of the road and grips the steering wheel, sobbing. It’s not fair, it’s not worth it. The HIV has crippled him long before his immune system suffers, not merely taking away the most important part of his life, but forcing him to destroy it himself.

He thinks he stopped living after the diagnosis, and just continued to exist.

Six weeks later he comes home to find Morgan in his kitchen, unpacking shopping bags full of groceries. Reid puts his bag down on the table, remembering he never got his spare key back.

“As I suspected, you have nothing decent in your fridge,” Derek comments, unpacking fresh vegetables. “You can’t live on takeout and expect to stay healthy. I know you can cook, Spencer, and you’re gonna have to, because I’m not becoming a barefoot-in-the-kitchen-husband. Cooking’s at its best when you do it together.” He waves his hands at some ingredients set out on the counter. “We’re having thai-style noodles, get chopping.”

Instead of arguing, or asking what Morgan was doing there, he gets a knife out of the draw and starts peeling and chopping onions.

“And you’re kinda unfit, pretty boy,” Morgan goes on matter-of-factly. “Running around on the job isn’t enough, you’re gonna work out a couple of times a week, okay?”

He’s onto chopping peppers and he can hear water boiling before he speaks.

“I can’t give you what you want anymore,” Reid says, without looking around.

Then there’re hands on his waist and slipping around his middle as Morgan embraces him, hooking his chin over his shoulder. After a few seconds Reid relaxes into the contact, putting his arms over the circling ones, a warm presence his skin hasn’t quite forgotten, even after so long.

“You’re already everything I want, Spencer.”


End file.
